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Friday, March 13, 2015

Redo Your Room by Karen Bokram, 2015

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Whether you re looking for an all-out room redo or a few new tricks to brighten up your space, Faithgirlz! has tons easy how-tos and quick DIYs that'll morph your room into a true expression of y-o-u. Give your walls a burst of color (even without a bucket of paint!) and turn your fave pics and keepsakes into inspiring art. These floor-to-ceiling secrets help nix those piles of clothes decorating your space in favor of awesome add-ons, like mini murals and a magical ribbon chandelier (psst: we won't tell anyone it took you a half hour to whip up).
Redo Your Room is packed with cute and crafty ways to add pop to your domain. You'll learn how to make even the tiniest spaces into pretty places to sleep 'n' study, and clever ways to keep it all looking adorable. And the best part? You can make over your bedroom without going broke.(128 pages)Of all the books I've gotten for review, this is easily the most popular with my family! I told my sister (who's also my roommate) I'd requested it, and she asked me if it had come every day until it did. Before I got a chance to look through it she had already flipped through the whole thing, and our little brother had gotten a quick peek too. The cover just draws people in, making them want to see what sort of tips and tricks will make your room look as fun as the one in the cover picture.

I haven't followed all of the tips in the book (sorry, but I don't feel like moving my bed, painting my walls, or making magnets with pictures of my clothes on them!), but I've done enough to get a good feel for the book. The best advice the book had for me actually isn't even a project. In the section giving tips for organizing your belongings, the book suggests rolling your pants instead of folding them. Revolutionary! I tried it with both my pants and my skirts (what? Skirts can go in dressers, too!), and it's been working really well for me. I can find all of my bottoms really quickly because they're all laid out for me, and the rolling actually protects them from the wrinkles they would normally get when I root around looking for a particular piece.

Anyway, moving on from my wardrobe revelation. There are a lot of neat ideas like labeling jars with tags painted in chalkboard paint, and putting decorative tape around the cords coming from all your electronics so they don't look so messy. Bokram includes a lot of ideas for repurposing old things like camp t-shirts (a pillow or a rug!) and ribbons (a ribbon chandelier!). Of course, I only have two camp t-shirts so I can't make anything with them. And do most girls just have a random stash of "hair bows and scraps of pretty ribbons" lying around? Because I don't. To make the ribbon chandelier, I would actually have to go out of my way to buy ribbons for it. Which kind of defeats the purpose, in my opinion. However, there are enough different projects that there is bound to be something for everyone.

The one complaint I have about the book is that a lot of the projects simply don't work for me personally. For example, I'm not going to make sheer scarf curtains for my windows because then the light will wake me up in the mornings. And I can't decoupage my desk drawers because I don't have a desk! I get the feeling that the authors targeted the book for girls with nicer/more organized rooms than mine, with bedside tables just waiting to be decorated with post cards and desks dying for a spot of color via some washi tape. As for me, my bedside table is my bookshelf and my desk is my bed. That limits my personal use for the projects in the book, but I still think they're very neat and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to any girl looking to revamp her room.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exhange for an honest review.